This invention relates to drying apparata for tobacco, and, more particularly, to an apparatus for holding a stalk of tobacco during drying in which the stalk may be inserted upwardly into the drying apparatus to be automatically held against undesired downward removal therefrom.
To allow leaves of tobacco to dry before processing into end products, stalks of tobacco are hung in drying barns for a period of time until the tobacco leaves have dried. Accordingly, the stalks of tobacco must be spaced far enough from each other to allow air drying of the leaves while not being spaced too far apart so as to waste a portion of the available area.
In the past, stalks of tobacco have been hung in drying barns by spearing several stalks on the end of a stick, spacing the stalks along the stick, and then hanging the stick, along with many others, in the drying barn. Spearing the stalks is difficult and the multi-step process is labor intensive and time consuming resulting in high cost over time.
None of the prior art attempts at hanging tobacco for drying have comprised a means for holding the tobacco without the spearing and multi-step operation described above. Reducing the labor and time involved in hanging the tobacco stalks for drying is, accordingly, desirable.
The difficulties in the prior art drying apparata for tobacco is substantially eliminated by the present invention.